


Backdrop

by esama



Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-25
Updated: 2015-04-25
Packaged: 2018-03-25 16:22:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3817000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/esama/pseuds/esama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Obi-Wan does a bit of personal grooming.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Backdrop

**Author's Note:**

> Proofread by Darlene

Obi-Wan stepped out of the shower, rubbing at his shoulder. Though he hadn't been injured in the debacle that was Geonosis, there was a definite strain left behind by the battle – and it didn't help that he'd nearly crash landed on the planet first. And droids did not make gentle hosts. He'd wrenched his shoulder at some point, and hadn't yet had the time to properly attend to it.

Well… it would heal on its own in a couple of days. There wasn't time for a healing trance now.

Sighing, he brushed a hand over his hair, sweeping the wet strands back and away from his face. As the ventilation system kicked in and stabilised the fresher temperature, sucking away the steam of the very luxurious water shower, he stepped to the mirror. The man who looked back out at him in it looked about as exhausted as he felt and about as torn.

There was a selection of tools by the sink and he considered the silver tray they sat on for a moment, its beautifully cared for handled and polished surface, nearly mirror like. Then he reached for the laser shaver, turning it in hand and examining it. It had been a while since he'd last used one – he'd gotten used to the beard, and it only required occasional trimming. Now though…

He turned to the mirror again and examined his face. He liked the beard, it made him look older, it made him look… experienced. Like all powerful Force sensitives, he aged slowly – under the beard he did not look his thirty four years. And a Jedi who looked like he was barely into his adulthood did not garner much respect. The beard made him seem a bit more respectable – however selfish and petty such care for his appearance was, it had made his job easier on a number of occasions.

But it also softened his features somewhat.

With a determined squaring of his shoulders, he turned the shaver on and, after moment of judging how to go about the change, he began to shave. There was image playing somewhere in the back of his head, of a Human man he'd once seen in the streets of Coruscant, maybe five or so years ago – a stylish, rich man, every aspect of him carefully groomed for tasteful but sharp elegance. There'd been something predatory about the man that had struck Obi-Wan then, which had stayed with him for a while.

That was what he wanted now. He wanted to look like _that_.

The shaver was a good one, a very expensive model – it burned away the hair without even the slightest hint of smoke, barely warm against his skin as he passed it over the edge of his jaw and underneath it, slowly chipping away the edges of the beard. The luxury of the thing was an oddly two bladed pleasure – when he'd shaved the last time, he'd done it by traditional means. A blade and shaving cream. It was how Qui-Gon had taught him to shave, and it was a ritual Obi-Wan had taken some pleasure in, in the meticulous and careful art of not accidentally slicing his own throat. The laser shaver was infinitely easier to use but…

It lacked a certain... finality. Somehow, being able to see the cut off hair would've made it… ceremonious perhaps. This required some ceremony, Obi-Wan felt. He was changing himself, in a way.

And more than.

He stopped, pausing to examine the result. A few careful adjustments with the trimming setting, and he was done. The result wasn't _quite_ like what he'd seen on Coruscant – he wasn't quite skilled enough to achieve that level of meticulous grooming. But it was different from how he usually looked, the goatee adding an edge to his features he'd been missing since the whiskers had begun to soften his jaw line.

Turning the shaver off, he ran a hand over his face, along the jaw and down to his chin where the hair still remained, framing his lips and the end of his chin. It would take some time to get adjusted to, that was for certain.

As did oh so many things.

Now that he'd started though, the easiest thing was to keep going. Obi-Wan set the laser shaver down and then examined the other items on the tray. There were other tools for trimming his hair and with some hesitation he considered the scissors. Should he cut his hair as well? He'd let it grow a little long in the last months and it curled at his neck now. Was it a detriment to his appearance now?

He took the hair dryer and applied it for a moment to rid himself of the remaining moisture from the shower, absently brushing his hair back with his fingers, styling it as he had for the previous months. Turning his face this way and that, he examined his reflection, considering. It went… well enough with the goatee, as far as he could judge these things. And there was a certain luxury to the visual they made together. Hair slightly too long to be practical and a well-trimmed beard slightly too well maintained to be anything but vanity.

There was a lavishness to it that might very well serve him.

The hair could stay for now; he decided and pushed the scissors to the side of the tray, considering instead other things. There were two small phials on the tray, each of them with a dropper, and a minipad for programming. Reaching for the nearest phial, Obi-Wan examined it with some uncertainty. Nanites weren't something he had much experience with, and though the brand was one he knew to be trustworthy and well produced, he hesitated.

This was a change he might not be able to undo.

There was a set of instructions, which he followed for now – programming the nanites with the minipad, an easy enough task to do. Then he read the warning label closely, making mental notes. Due to their construction, the chances of rejection were less than two percent, and on Humans the nanites worked ninety nine time out of a hundred. The odds were good, and the side effects minimal – at worst, he might have a small strain in his eyes for a couple of days, but even that was quite rare the label told him. The technology was as close to perfect as modern technology had been able to get it.

If he did this…

No. There was no point in hesitation. He _had_ to do this.

With the nanites programmed and prepped to go, Obi-Wan leaned his hip against the sink and then uncapped both bottles. Leaning his head back, he held the first phial's dropper over his open eye, and hesitated not at all before pouring the liquid in. It felt like… nothing he'd ever felt. A spark of pain and the slightest burn against the cornea, a terrible urge to blink he resisted with determination. The Force whispered to him, and he could've stopped it yet, he could've deactivated the nanites with the slightest use of Force.

Instead he waited for as long as he could before blinking and then wiping a hand across his eyes. The nanites were already deactivating on the surface, and the ones in his eye would find their way into his blood veins where they'd break apart, to be consumed by his body. Nothing left behind, but the effect.

He didn't stop to examine the changed eye, to marvel at the stark difference between the new eye colour and the old one – instead he took the second phial and repeated the process on his other eye. There was a strain in his throat now, and his breath hitched slightly – a knot of dismay and sorrow, forming.

No undoing it now. Maybe never again. If he hadn't been committed before, he was now.

Washing the nanite liquid off his face, he looked at his face once to make sure it worked and then turned away, to the tray. The last item lay there, the most damning of them all, and with a tight expression he took it, accepted it as part of his life. It was heavy and cool in his hands, the inside a smooth material he knew would feel very fine against his skin. He could not, would not, hate, but if he did?

He'd hate this thing. It was infused with malice and darkness and even holding it made him cringe. The very idea of _wearing_ it made his skin crawl and he rather wanted to throw the thing out the fresher's window.

But he didn't, and his hesitation was gone now. He clipped the collar around the base of his neck after only the barest of examination and shifted it into a comfortable position. It _was_ very comfortable to wear, nothing like the collars he'd worn before – and for a Jedi, he'd had many brushes with collars. This one stretched, its plates shifting smoothly until it fit snugly, and it neither constricted his breathing nor hung limply against his collar bones – the fit was perfect. Of course it was.

 Obi-Wan didn't look at his reflection this time. Instead he turned to the set of clothing laid out for him – tailored specifically for him, everything from under garments to a long coat to boots, which sat neatly by the carefully hung clothes. He began pulling them on systematically, not quite luxuriating in the richness of the materials – no cheap synthwool here. The materials were real, expensive, and far too fancy for him to even begin identifying them. He was suspicious that the under clothes were silk, but wouldn't have bet on it.

Layer by layer, he covered himself in carefully created, perfectly fit clothing which were nothing like what he was used to. The longing for simple Jedi tunics and the easy simplicity of a tabart that flashed inside him was brief and intense. Buttons felt strange and unwieldy to his fingers, as he buttoned up the dress shirt, its collar coming up and against the metal one around his neck, not quite hiding it. A vest with subtle patterns went over it, form fitting but not so much so that it constricted his breathing. And then, finally, the over coat.

The sharp lines of it, running smoothly and impeccably along the lines of his body, brought forth what his trimming hadn't quite. The high collar of the coat came nearly up to his chin line, covering what the dress shirt hadn't quite and hiding the collar. He finished by pulling the boots on and though their polish and style was a bit much for a Jedi, at least they were mostly _familiar_ with their tallness and snugness. He could've done without the heel, but he could get used to it – and it did make him slightly taller which was probably just as well.

Obi-Wan finished his dressing and turned to the mirror again. The man who looked back at him did not look like a Jedi anymore. Though the sight of him made Obi-Wan's gut clench painfully, he took a moment to appreciate the transformation. The black coat, so very streamlined with its strict lines and straight shoulders, gave him a sharpness he'd never had before, and yes, the goatee fit this outfit better than his softer beard would've.

He looked… sharp.

Lifting his chin slightly, Obi-Wan tried for a cool expression and then for a small, superior smile. Subtlety, he thought, would be the key. He couldn't fake arrogance, he couldn't fake conceit, but he could do this much. So long as he did not allow himself to smile, to grin, to laugh… he could wear the image of this strange man without too many blunders. Maybe, with some practice, he could find a smile that fit this man, maybe he'd even find a chuckle that wasn't too hearty – maybe…

For now, nuance of expression would serve him better.

He shifted his shoulders and tried a couple of postures to find one that fit this new man better than Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi's calmly confident one did. He tried for a slight slouch and found it wanting, he tried for a lean, an angling of hips and uneven shoulders, and it did not fit. In the end, ram rod stiffness worked the best. Chin up and level with the ground, looking ever so slightly down his nose, shoulders down and neck straight, he looked…

Ready. He looked about ready.

Taking a moment to ingrain the posture of superiority into his being, forcing his muscles and bones to memorise it with the slightest use of the Force, he turned away from the mirror and exited the fresher. Outside in the lavish common room the fresher was attached to there was only one man, sitting on a gracefully arching couch that faced the large windows on the other side of the room. He, Obi-Wan noted, wore a very similar coat as he did, if one with a shorter collar. Like Obi-Wan's coat, his had a slightly off centre over-lapping lapel that, along with their strict lines, gave both coats a slightly militant look.

The man arched his eyebrows and stood, setting down his wine glass and coming to examine Obi-Wan. There was a hint of something in his movements as he walked around Obi-Wan and then lifted his chin to examine his face. An owner, examining the changes in a recently acquired possession.

"Oh, well done, Master Kenobi," the man said. "Well done indeed. You look… very fine."

"Thank you… my Lord," Obi-Wan answered, nodding. "The tools you provided me were most excellent."

Count Dooku smiled at him and clasped his shoulder almost compassionately – almost. The grip was hard, fingers digging into the flesh of Obi-Wan's shoulder, tight and nearly punishing. "Come, my friend. There is much to do, now, and I must bring you properly up to speed."

Obi-Wan bowed his head slightly, closing his new, sulphur yellow eyes for a moment before following – leaving the fresher and all he'd destroyed there behind.

Force, but he hoped it would be worth it in the end.


End file.
